Recommendations
The U.S. has a unique approach to cultural integration compared to Europe. The U.S. "laissez-faire" approach to legal, nonviolent, Islamism and right-wing extremism is based on a cultural approach to integration. As a multicultural country that embraces diversity, the U.S. is known for welcoming difference. Communities such as Muslims, Sikhs, Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jews, to name a few, have long enjoyed religious and cultural freedoms. In addition, the protection of free speech afforded by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution makes extremist speech more acceptable in the U.S. than in some other countries in the world. Perhaps for this reason, American Muslims are more integrated into American society than, for example, Muslims in Europe, which partly explains the relatively low degree of radicalization among Muslims in the United States.
At the same time, the legacy of racism, fear of a growing non-white population, increased labor migration from third-world countries that competes with whites in the United States, and the export of capital to other countries all set the stage for the growth of right-wing, racist, and outright neo-Nazi sentiment in the United States.
With this in mind, our Recommendations are as follows:
- Congress needs to pass legislation such as the “Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2019” (S. 894) to authorize key federal agencies to focus on preventing and countering domestic far right extremism provide regular reporting to Congress on it.
- Further work needs to be done towards strengthening anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing mechanisms to ensure any violations of financial laws by these extremists can be prosecuted.
- Gun safety reforms would be the right move towards ensuring guns do not get into the hands of domestic extremists.
- The J. Biden administration should work with Congress and continue criminal justice reforms, including the reassessment of federal funding to law enforcement, both state and local, that would encourage state and local authorities to reduce the damaging effects of law enforcement’s abusive actions towards minorities. Saved financial resources could be invested in these affected communities. Arrests should be minimized. Arrest records should be expunged. Independent oversight bodies and legal tools should be established that would ensure police accountability. Pre-trial/pre-conviction incarceration should be limited when arrests do occur since some unnecessary arrests pressure people to plead guilty regardless of actual guilt (such as in the cases when the arrested individuals cannot afford paying bail, which happens more often with disadvantaged minority groups); money bail should be abolished; excessively long sentences should be reduced (Second Look Act); prolonged solitary confinement should end. Excessive fees and fines associated with criminal convictions should end.
- U.S. Congress needs to pass, and robustly enforce, clear and comprehensive nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people across the United States.
- The Biden Administration should press Congress to pass a Violence Against Women Act (that would be LGBT-, minority- and immigrant- inclusive) and which would protect immigrant women in abusive relationships from the threat of deportation if they leave these relationships.
- The following executive immigration and border policies implemented by the Trump administration should be adjusted:
- asylum legislation should appropriately respond to humanitarian need;
- Migrant Protection Protocols should be undone;
- The Public Health Order which closed land border to asylum seekers should be withdrawn;
- Community-based alternatives to detention (such as shelter with families) should be pursued;
- Customs and Border Protection should stop separating children from parents and extended family members at the border;
- Family reunifications should be sped up;
- New legislation that would protect long-term residents from deportation and family separation (though an appropriate legalization program) should be introduced as well as policies that would allow deported people who were wrongfully deported to return and pursue claims to remain in the U.S.;
- Withdraw proposed regulations issued in June and September 2020 that would restrict access to asylum, including by eliminating seeking asylum on the grounds of “gender” and allowing immigration judges to introduce their own, potentially biased evidence into the record in asylum cases;
- The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security should continue countering the threat from white supremacist extremist groups:
- Financial flows within transnational far right that funds the far right in the US must be severed;
- Extremism in the U.S. military must be addressed as well as the root causes of Islamic radicalism and the drivers of recruitment;
- International cooperation should be resumed in fighting terrorism;
- Terrorist safe heavens should be eliminated abroad and capacity of partner nations should be strengthened.
- Congress must send clear signals that it takes the threat of domestic extremism seriously as a top national security priority.
- Violent extremist propaganda and narratives online should also be combatted. Because ISIL, white supremacists, and other violent extremist groups use the Internet and social media to recruit, the U.S. government must continue to support efforts aimed at countering narratives and taking terrorist and extremist accounts offline. Additionally, while social media companies have made progress in suspending accounts linked to these groups, there should be greater cooperation between the private sector and government in this regard, while safeguarding human rights and protecting free speech and other civil liberties.
- Lastly, Congress should pass House Resolution (HR) 40, which would establish a commission to investigate the impacts of slavery and subsequent racist laws and policies that contribute to discrimination of Black communities. If Congress does not pass HR40, the administration should establish such a commission by executive order.
